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Two Monarch Caterpillars

Being where I am, there are Monarch Butterflies around me all year. Wilton Manors, Florida seems to have a thing about turning itself into a nature habitat. I’m near a park that is a nature preserve, the M. E. DePalma Park.

I’m lucky that it is handy, that park, because I walk past it frequently looking for seeds for more Milkweed. I’ve got to borrow some more. Monarchs are back.

They seem to know. When the Milkweed just puts forth a flower, I notice them fluttering by my porch looking for a place to lay eggs. I make it a point to go out back and look at my pots and sure enough under a leaf there is a grain of sand.

Monarch Butterfly eggs are about the size of a grain of sand and have a swirled pattern on top like a Chinese Bun.

The flowers never really come to term. I almost never get seeds. The park does, although usually about the time that the park is down to sticks, I sneak in some flowers and may even get a seed or three out of them.

We trade back and forth.

At this point I’m down to sticks.

Orchids are in bloom.

I have a pot of Poinsettia that is hip high, and I am 6’4″ tall. It is in bloom.

My Coleus is running amok, even if I am recycling this and most of these pictures…

I have Podocarpus ready to plant.

I have red variegated Hibiscus ready to plant.

But that Mexican Milkweed? That’s what it is there for. Food for the Monarchs. The last time I checked there were six caterpillars on one single plant. Those plants won’t win.

Oh well, at least the Monarchs are happy and I have pictures of some that slipped in there when they weren’t watching last time!